Day 6 – Vinales

Still stuffed from the soup, giant lobster, rice, potatoes, plantain, salad and fruit from the previous night we decide a long hike is order, unfortunately Lumino ambushes us before we can get across the terrace and we are treated to fruit salad, eggs, ham, bread, grapefruit juice, orange juice, mango juice, yogurt and coffee. Did someone say it was tough in Cuba?

The sights of Vinales – not surprisingly – revolve around tobacco but it seems I get one of the least enthusiastic guides at the plantation 'Diz is tobacco seed, diz tobacco seed grow into diz tobacco plant, diz tobacco plant it hung to dry, diz dry tobacco plant it put in sack, we sell sack. Tour is finis. How many cigars you want to buy?'

I also visited a cave which was great if you have never been in a cave before and the most hideous looking mural I have ever seen, which apparently was meant to represent evolution so I am unsure what the two-headed sea monster was doing in it.

Back at the Casa, Lumino regretfully informed me she was unable to catch an elephant that day and that therefore dinner would be slightly smaller than the previous night. Luckily, I had spent wisely earlier in the day and was sporting a cigar large enough to hang a coat on and a litre of Havana Club rum which helped get over the disappointment.

Day 5 – Havana to Vinales

For the first bus journey of the trip I am awakened at the outrageously early hour of 5am by the thunderous cock next door. After he has spent an hour shouting from his balcony his rooster starts squaking too and I decide I might as well get up.

I am heading for the hills and the tobacco growing region of Vinales. The bus was spotlessly clean, the seats opulent and before I am able to say 'This may be the best bus journey we have ever taken' Jason Statham and Sylvester Stallone fill the TV screen and I have to endure The Expendables for the second time in five days.

Vinales is a small picturesque village in the western provinces of Cuba and as the bus pulls into the main street it is mobbed by touts wanting me to stay at their houses, their friends houses or indeed any house that I may be stupid enough to follow them to. In Cuba there are two options for accommodation, either the state controlled hotels or privately owned houses (known as casas) which pay a tax to the government but are only allowed to rent out one or two rooms. After fending off the incredibly persistent touts who helpfully inform me that my intended house had 'burnt down', 'been destroyed by tornado', 'fallen into river' I made my way to the one I had been recommended – Casa Lumino.

Lumino is an 80-odd year old Cuban lady who it transpired loved nothing more than cooking and talking.

She really, really liked talking, alas, only in Spanish and clearly she mis-interpreted my fragile Spanish because when I said 'We would like to have dinner here' she heard 'Please give me all the food that Cuba has stockpiled for the humanitarian aid convey to Dafur'.

She really, really liked cooking too.

Day 4 – Havana

Over the last couple of days I have visited the Museum of Cigars, which was little more than a collection of lighters in various dusty glass cabinets, the Museum of chocolate which was a cafe selling chocolate and the Havana City Museum which I had inadvertently got into without paying as I was mistaken for one of the 30-strong tour group than was in line in front of me.

Today I visited The Museum of the Revolution which tells how Fidel Castro, Camilo Cienfuegos and Che Guevara with the greatest and noblest of intentions wrestled the country from the American backed dictator Batista in 1959 and turned it into the thriving anti-capitialist state it is today – I am less convinced about the last bit, but the last thing I need to do is criticise a Communist dictator, I mean president. A considerable amount of memorabilia and rare photographs are accompanied by suitably bombastic communist captions; 'The inspired leader of the glorious revolution is contemplating in readiness to face the imperialist oppressors' when 'Fidel eating' would have done just as well.

The Museum of Modern art was equally impressive and at last I come across a building that not only has an air conditioning system but an air conditioning system that actually works. As if to show off this achievement the guy with the controller has set the temperature level to what would be required to freeze a pig's carcass.

In the evening, whilst attempting to find a restaurant that had been recommended (signs are only casually used) I walked into an acceptably shabby looking establishment only to be met by glass chandeliers, tuxedo wearing waiters and a piano player, before I can say 'I think I am in the wrong place, do you sell egg and chips?' the maître d' (they had one of those too) had whisked Ciara and I to a table and was inquiring as to which bottle of Champagne we would like.

This posed a major problem, namely, as I always do when I venture onto dimly lit streets in third-world countries, I was carrying approximately £14. After a lengthy perusal of the lower end of the menu and a close inspection of the coins that we had been accumulating we realised we could just about squeeze through it – as Susan Boyle said eyeing up a Kate Moss dress.

The food was fantastic, the service was impeccable and the speed at which we left the place (for fear our meagre tip would be outed) was nothing short of legendary.